CATS OF INSTAGRAM project

This project came about almost by accident. I was testing out some lighting ideas on myself at home, and had set up a background and lights with a cable release to shoot self portraits. My cat, oryx, was hanging around and getting in on the action and so I decided to take some pictures of him in a lit, almost fashion portrait style setting.

My favourite shots of him were captured while he was miaowing, a tiny squeaking sound but one which looked like the mighty roar of a lion in the final images.

Having produced these images I was inspired to try some more, for several reasons; 1) I love cats, 2) I was finding it difficult to pin down human subjects at the time for portrait shoots and thought it mioght be easier to get cats to sit for me, and c) cats and the internet go together like peanut butter and jelly, and so a series of cat portraits were sure to go down well on social media.

SEBASTIAN

Sebastian is a very good looking cat, and would usually be very easy to work with, but on the day i photograpjhed him, as luck would have it, he was not at all well and therefore not very happy about being photographed. With a little love and attention we managed to get him to sit for a few shots, and then let him go and recuperate.

nishi

I then faced my most challenging subject, Nishi. Nishi is a black cat with amazing yellow eyes, and I had an image in my mind of an almost sihouetted black shape with these huge yellow eyes almost glowing in the black face. Unfortunately Nishi did NOT like the idea of being photographed, She is a very nervous cat and once I had all my gear set up she could not be persuaded to come and sit on the stool in front of the background. We tried everything, but she was not interested. Eventually Melissa, her owner, managed to get her to come and sit on the stool a couple of times. The first time I managed to take nine frames which enabled me to test and improve the lighting, but the pose wasn't right. The second time I only managed to take four frames, but one of them was perfect. When it became obvious that that was all I was going to get I packed up and headed home, very glad that I had one usable frame in the camera. A bit of photoshop on the backgroundand I was very happy with the result.

The four frames Nishi allowed me to take.

marla and hyde

Marla and Hyde were a lot easier to deal with. Great lovers of treats, they were more than happy to perform for a series of Dreamies. The close up of Hyde is actually him licking Dreamie crumbs off his lips.